Happy Happy!

Yesterday unbeknownst to me we received a statement from our dental insurance. Remember that I had to get two crown a few months back? Well, we were double insured for those crowns, so we were hoping our cost would be a couple hundred instead of more like almost a thousand. I had questioned the dentist staff a bunch about the insurance, because once in the past when we were double insured it actually ended up costing us more -- the first insurance paid their portion, and the second one said they wouldn't pay anymore, because the first one already paid what they would have. Turns out the second insurance alone would have been cheaper since they had lower caps on what the dentist could charge. Grrrr ...

So, in the statement yesterday it said that our portion was more than $800. I was getting sick when I came upon the statement this morning. Good thing I didn't come upon it until the dentist was open so I didn't have to wonder all night about it! I called to find out our portion, and she said was just paid and we have a $0 balance! HOORAY!!! I think I paid less than $100 total for two crowns. You can't believe how happy that makes me.

In other happy news, our trip to Disneyland is coming up soon. The kids (and Paul) are really anticipating this trip. I hadn't made a big deal of it earlier than about a month ago, and I was wondering if I was making the kids miss out on some of the anticipation, which is part of the fun of a trip. However, now that they ask me EVERY day (even though we have a count-down chain) how many days until we leave, I'm glad I didn't bring it up until we had only a month left.

We also went last night and bought a harness for Shayla. I remember going to Disneyland when I was growing up and seeing kids on those things and thinking their parents were just mean to treat them like dogs. Well, now here I am doing it. Walmart had really cute "backpack" harnesses that look like either a monkey or a dog. We decided on the monkey since it was a darker fabric and will show dirt less. Zachary, who loves dogs, really wanted that dog backpack. In the car he informed me and Paul, "Sometimes I wander off." It was hilarious. I love that boy! We assured him that he wouldn't wander off in Disneyland.

This morning the boys found the monkey backpack and asked if they could open it. We agreed, and they put it right on Shayla and had a blast following her around holding on to the monkey's tail. She then asked for it to be taken off, and then asked for Tyler to wear it. She got a kick out of pulling him wherever she wanted him to go. They're liking it now, but I'm sure she'll get pretty sick of it when it limits her mobility.

Any good road trip ideas? My bro-in-law's family had a 100-mile treat. He says he's not sure whether it really was 100 miles or not, but that's what they were told and they love it. I have clipboards filled with games (slug bug tally, kids' sudoku, auto bingo, dot game), and we plan to bring the portable DVD player. Any other brilliant ideas? This trip really is short compared to the other two we've done in the past 11 months, so I'm not too worried about it. We've got snacks coming out our ears for the trip and Disneyland itself.

Oh, and we're so happy to be helping the economy any way we can. :) We're hoping nobody else feels like they want to spend the money and we have the park to ourselves. Sweet dreaming, huh?